Fears of nuclear catastrophe rise after attack on Russian-controlled power plant

Kyiv — The possibility of a nuclear catastrophe 34} A plant inUkraine sparked a heightened international alarm on Monday after artillery strikes hit Russian-controlled forces, andChernobyl's nearly 2 It's twice as big.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned international inspectors to give vast scrutiny amid growing fears of disaster after a weekend strike left a nuclear power plant damaged but still operating. They asked for permission to enter the nuclear power plant.

"Any attack on a nuclear power plant is suicidal," he said Monday in Tokyo after attending a ceremony in Hiroshima to mark his 77th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing. rice field.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged accusations over who was responsible for the attack on Europe's largest plant.

Ukraine is a Soviet-era siteOn Friday and, Russian artillery hit the plant, calling for the demilitarization of the plant. It damaged buildings, shut down one reactor, and posed a radiation leak and fire threat.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said Ukrainian artillery had hit the factory, damaging high-voltage power lines supplying the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.

NBC News has not confirmed either side's claims.

In any case, politicians around the world have warned of a growing threat of disaster, and he said 54,000 people had lost power as a result of the shelling of Ukraine's state-owned energy company. Energoatom chief he told NBC News on Saturday.

The factory is located in Zaporizhia, a region of southeastern Ukraine occupied by Russian forces in the early stages of the war, and is nowlikely in sight of a Ukrainian counterattack. 87}

The head of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, called for the Russians to withdraw and hand over control to a team of peacekeepers.

"What we need is for Russia to release the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and create some kind of demilitarized zone around it, he told NBC News on Saturday. The power plant was stable, but radiation levels "could rise at any moment," Cotin added. It warned of a real risk of a "nuclear catastrophe" and a "radiological catastrophe" from stored nuclear material.

The company cited Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the intelligence department of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. He told Ukrainian television on Saturday: "There is confirmed information about the mining of power units by the Russian occupation forces of the Zaporizhia NPP in Energodar."

Moscow has yet to respond to the accusations. NBC News asked the Kremlin to respond.

Russia denied shelling the plant, An artillery brigade launching an attack from the nearby town of Margarnet instead blamed the Ukrainian 44th attack. Ukraine was responsible for "a new act of nuclear terrorism," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, according to Russian state news agency Novosti.

The reactor facility was operating in "normal mode," according to Russian news agency Interfax, Yevgeny Baritsky, head of the Russian-installed regional administration, said on Monday. Moscow's Ministry of Defense then said that high-voltage lines were damaged, resulting in a power surge that forced staff to "cut the power output of two of the site's six reactors to prevent disruption."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the shelling "extremely dangerous" in a daily conference call with reporters on Monday, adding: Continuation of such shelling.

Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said last week that he was "deeply concerned" about the takeover of factories by the Russian military. Blinken said, "Russia is using this plant as the equivalent of a human shield, but a nuclear shield in the sense that it is firing at Ukrainians from around the plant, and of course the Ukrainians A horrific accident involving a nuclear power plant.”

Russian forces destroyed the factory in March, just a week after the invasion began. has been seized but is still run by Ukrainian staff. Energoatom says the factory has about 500 Russian soldiers and 50 of his military vehicles.

His 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the northern Ukraine city of Pripyat is considered the worst on record. More than 100,000 people living within 19 miles of him had to be evacuated, resulting in radioactivity being detected across Europe. Officially, fewer than 50 people died as a direct result of Chernobyl, but scientists and environmental groups vehemently dispute this.

Ukrainian parliamentarians saythat 3 million people could die and 51 million could be affected by radiation in the event of a severe accident involving the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

Josh Lederman reported from Kyiv and Patrick Smith from London.

Contributions by Reuters, Erika Angulo, Morgan Chesky, and Yuliya Tarmazan.